Morale issues

The struggle against frontline gambling, the true number of deserters, discipline and donations in danger

Money flows

For those on Ukrainian social media, you will notice a never ending stream of instagram stories and facebook posts asking for donations to the army. In conditions of miserly wages and under-employment, many find it difficult to scrounge up the pennies. My friends stuck in the country tell me that people often face social humiliation by ‘patriotic activists’ online if they don’t reply to the latest call for donations with proof they sent money.

Meanwhile, figures like Serhiy Sternenko and Serhiy Pritula have built a whole political career out of gathering donations for the army. A new interview with Prytula was released yesterday on Ukrainska Pravda, which shocked me somewhat by how much Prytula draw attention to the fact that the SERHIY PRYTULA FOUNDATION is responsible for holding the frontline.

However, on June 8 AFU commander with the call sign ‘Diego’ complained on social media that donations were at their lowest-ever level. He called his last fundraiser a ‘litmus test of the mood of the people in the country…. people are tired of the war, very tired’. Only 12 people (including Diego and his wife) donated to his last fundraiser, even though 15 thousand viewed it over the course of the day.

Anna Martynyuk, another famous 'military fundraiser/activist’, said the same thing back in late May, with the same diagnosis. She also drew attention to the fact that many businesses have left due to the threat of mobilization.

And what money does exist is often going the wrong direction - to gambling, which ravages frontline troops. Strana.ua reported in April on the desperation of officers at the front who try to stop gambling. Soldiers often gamble away all their income, and get into deep debt to continue gambling. In desperate search of adrenalin and a way to forget about frontline life, gambling is all their have. If their phones are taken away, they use other soldiers’ phones. Western media has also published on the topic.

In the effort to stop the epidemic of gambling at the front, the national bank restricted the use of credit funds to pay for online gambling on June 22. But according to experts, this will be easily overcome.

Discipline in danger

On June 27, former advisor to the president’s office Alexey Arestovich stated that AFU soldiers are refusing to carry out commands more and more often. On the same day, news emerged that the situation had worsened in a particular section of the front (Kharkiv region, Sotnitskiy Kazachok) after fresh troops replaced the older ones. This indicates the less reliable nature of mobilized troops.

On this matter, check out this July 1 post by a Ukrainian military meme instagram. The caption is ‘head of the brigade when he sees what the newly mobies [mobilized] learned from their base training program’: